Humanity's Top 10 Bucket List...Now Where's David Letterman

Coming back from vacation is always a bittersweet phenomenon for me. It’s concurrently depressing and a relief. I’m always longing to be back in the middle of the trip, without a care in the world, yet itching to get everything that’s piled up in my absence taken care of. So Saturday morning turned into a bit of a roller-coaster ride, as I disembarked from a seven day cruise through Mexico aboard The Norwegian Star—my ocean liner of a home away from home—and made my way to LAX.

I won’t lie. I struggled with giving up my Blackberry for eight glorious days. But I also reveled in ditching said Crackberry in the stateroom safe. I both loved and hated not keeping any sort of schedule. I was delighted, yet insecure about being able to sleep in past 5 a.m. (the first few mornings, upon waking au natural et sans alarm, I panicked, thinking I had somehow slept through my alarm and was now disastrously late).

But mostly, I have arrived back in the states with a simmering sense of guilt about being in the social position to receive such an opportunity—to be waited on, hand and foot. My time in Mexico was exhilarating, but concerning as well. It’s just not fair that some of us get to jet-set around, while others toil to make our journeys memorable without ever coming close to affording similar luxury for themselves.

I’ve gotten some flack for believing in an American Dream, but I just can’t help it. Even though I walked through the streets of Mazatlan’s slums and saw the injustice of the de facto global caste system, I can’t stop myself from feeling that the situation can change if we just keep pushing. That sounds simplistic maybe, but that it’s the only way to keep myself from collapsing into depression and cynicism about it all.

I suppose it comes down to what might be one of the corniest, albeit spot on, sayings in sports, “You’ll miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Look at it this way: We can't afford to sit on the sidelines contemplating whether or not to act. So I’m going to keep taking shots until I fall down dead on the field, and I hope you will too. The world is so far from perfect that it’s overwhelming to let yourself think about it for more than a minute. But the world has one thing that keeps me going and that’s the future. We can’t change the past, but we can use its lessons in our every present moment to influence the future and make sure we build the human experience into something better.

Isn’t that the American Dream? The belief that tomorrow will be better than today? And that we must have at least some control over building “our better”? To boot, I’ll leave you with a few other musings on the subject by thought-provokers extraordinaire, who most certainly can put these things more eloquently than I.


“THE WORLD IS A DANGEROUS PLACE TO LIVE; NOT BECAUSE OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARE EVIL, BUT BECAUSE OF THE PEOPLE WHO DON'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.” (ALBERT EINSTEIN)


“DON'T BUNT. AIM OUT OF THE BALLPARK.” (DAVID OGILVY)
"GREAT SPIRITS HAVE ALWAYS FOUND VIOLENT OPPOSITION FROM MEDIOCRITIES. THE LATTER CANNOT UNDERSTAND IT WHEN A MAN DOES NOT THOUGHTLESSLY SUBMIT TO HEREDITARY PREJUDICES BUT HONESTLY AND COURAGEOUSLY USES HIS INTELLIGENCE." (ALBERT EINSTEIN)


“CYNIC: ONE WHO NOT ONLY READS BITTER LESSONS FROM THE PAST, BUT WHO IS PREMATURELY DISAPPOINTED WITH THE FUTURE.” (UNKNOWN SOURCE)

"WHAT GOOD IS A MAN WHO WON'T TAKE A STAND? WHAT GOOD IS A CYNIC WITH NO BETTER PLAN? YES, I BELIEVE THERE'S A BETTER WAY." (BEN HARPER)

Heck, I like this one so much, I'll put the video below. If you've got three minutes and 45 seconds to spare, you should watch!!!



…and although I love Mr. Harper, my personal favorite is saved for last (obviously not least!)

“NOBODY CAN GO BACK AND START A NEW BEGINNING, BUT ANYONE CAN START TODAY AND MAKE A NEW ENDING.” (MARY ROBINSON)
Bottom line: Start dreaming. And dream big. But here’s the catch—you have to actually act on those dreams in order to manifest "our better" into reality. Otherwise, we’ll end up a bunch of cynical complainers in worse trouble than we’ve ever imagined.

So here's my plan: Some of the friends I met in Mexico encouraged me to make a personal “bucket list,” which you can check out by clicking here or on the Bucket List tab on my home page. But I decided the World needed a bucket list too and I can’t make it alone. I’m taking ideas at: starnsbailey@gmail.com. Please write in and use your BIG VOICE--use it or lose it people! Then stay tuned for the reveal of the "TOP 10 THINGS HUMANITY NEEDS TO DO THIS CENTURY…IN ORDER TO MAKE IT TO THE NEXT ONE" (And what you can do to help) on Saturday, November 1.